Just kidding!

Buckeye is growing like gangbusters, outpacing the infrastructure, and therefore congested as all hell. Throw in a strong wind, the sun becomes muted and the sky turns an icky brown. The air quality index shoots above 200 and we were dragging the Airstream through this mess.

All these factors made me announce to Amelia, “That’s it, we’re moving to Buckeye!” That became my mantra, and trust me, I repeated it over and over for hours. It’s a wonder I’m still married.

This begs an answer to the obvious question, of all the fascinating places in Arizona, what in the hell were we doing in Buckeye?

The short answer: it was San Diego State’s fault. They were in the NCAA Tournament, and they kept on winning. But I’ll start at the beginning.

The first leg of our trip was to be four nights in Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, Friday thru Monday. The Aztecs were in the Final Four and their game was Saturday afternoon. This had all the makings of a problem because we were camping in the middle of nowhere. But lucky us, Amelia befriended our boondocking neighbors. Nice folk from Alaska, they had Dish TV, and he was a huge college basketball fan. So they invited us over to watch the game. The guy had never met someone like me. I didn’t sit for one second. I just paced the entire game. With 0.6 seconds left, Lamont Butler sank the game winner. Everyone on the I-95 between Yuma and Quartzsite probably heard us yelling, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!”

The final game was to be Monday night and our Alaskan friends were leaving Monday morning. We had a predicament on our hands. Out of all the crappy options to view the game, Buckeye seemed the best. There was a Walmart parking lot across the street from a sports bar. Unfortunately, it was a complete shit show. No way could it hold our combined length of 46 feet. “That’s it, we’re moving to Buckeye!”

We got on the Google machine and it said a place called the Leaf Verde RV Resort with 377 sites was two miles away. At this point cost wasn’t an issue, we just needed a place to stay. We pulled into the “resort” only to be slapped in the face by a No Vacancy sign. “That’s it, we’re moving to Buckeye!”

We were running out of options, so we went into the office and Amelia did the talking. Hallelujah! They still had a spot or two.

The resort was a microcosm of Buckeye. We are thankful for our night at Leaf Verde, but we are never moving to Buckeye. And in case you didn’t know, the Aztecs lost the final game. The superstitious side of me wants to blame that on Buckeye.

BTW, King Road in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge is awesome.

 

 

 

Followers around my age will get a big kick out of this! While researching the dunes, I discovered the opening sequence of the TV series Kung Fu was filmed there. I absolutely loved that show. Check out the YouTube clip below.